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#worldmentalhealthday

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This week @10DowningStreet announced the appointment of the UK’s first Minister for Suicide Prevention – a monumental move for CALM, everyone in this movement, and, importantly, everyone in the UK. Here's why, and how we got here. THREAD 👇

Around 6,000 lives are lost to #suicide in the UK every year. 76% of those are male, which makes suicide the biggest killer of men under 45.

Suicide has a huge emotional impact – on families, communities and on society as a whole. Government figures estimate the cost of each suicide at £1.67 million, but we know the real cost is the devastation each and every suicide leaves behind.

It’s #WorldMentalHealthDay, and I am so proud to live in a time where people are starting to be more open about their mental health issues — because it’s important to reduce stigma and it helps others not feel alone, but also, in my case, it’s important for me to say the words.

It helps me for many reasons. When I talk about living with bipolar disorder and alcoholism, I am able to own those parts of my life — those parts of who I am — and that makes them less scary and more manageable.

Talking about it also reminds me that I have to remember that I face those issues. It’s easy for me, at moments, to convince myself that I am leading a pretty awesome life and have “moved past” them. Spoiler alert: I haven’t.

It's #WorldMentalHealthDay. Time to talk about the impact of #Brexit on mental health. I am sure that much of what I am about to say is more broadly applicable, but, in the end, on something like this I can only tell my story. 1/

As I discovered last week when prepping for @CakeWatchCast, I have now been doing this campaigning for 1250+ days since May 2015. It has taken different forms. In the beginning it was about building a community of pro-EU academics, then against Brexit and for citizens' rights. 2/

My follower number has changed substantially. I'm a fairly well-known 'entity' now - that in itself is a story all of its own in terms of the personal impact. But what I really want to say is that this obviously isn't my job, nor am I a politician with a programme. 3/

In honour of #WorldMentalHealthDay, let's talk about how the Legislature of California has been passing laws to systematically limit the rights of mentally ill people for many years — largely without any public criticism. A thread:

Like most jurisdictions, California law has long allowed a person to be taken into custody and imprisoned if the person presents an imminent danger to themselves or others. This is a form of preventive detention — imprisoning somebody because of what they might do.

Preventive detention is a potential threat to liberty, because the person might not actually have done the thing that the state is preventing them from doing. Crystal balls are imperfect, and a person's freedom hangs in the balance.

On #WorldMentalHealthDay, a few good practices from human rights orgs that have prioritized the wellbeing of their staff: 1. Organizational & leader commitment: strong messages from the top go a long way--but leaders must walk the talk

2. Orgs that place wellbeing in a political frame--that see resilience as resistance--help overcome concern about commodification of self-care by placing healing justice at center of human rights struggle.

1/ Many years ago, my wife asked me to go to the doctor because she was worried about my mental health.
I said no.
I had been raised in a world where if something was wrong with your mind, you either accepted it or tried to overcome it through strength. #WorldMentalHealthDay

2/ Of course, those things don't work. Accepting it doesn't make it go away, suppressing it doesn't make it go away, and it has nothing to do with strength. Trying to out-macho your mental illness just results in bigger explosions later on. #WorldMentalHealthDay

3/ In my case, the shoving it down and putting a lid on it had been going on for so long that the lid wouldn't stay on. It was overflowing. I was going, and I hesitate to use the word but it's pretty spot-on, crazy. #WorldMentalHealthDay

With #WorldMentalHealthDay trending, I need to have yet another rant about how I am disappointed by the Irish HSE, and its responce to mental health care.
(Thread)
The first thing is that its clear they focus on simple mental wellbeing, as a form of prevention. Rather than care.

Most people I know with an existing, or previous diagnosis of a mental health condition, are already amazingly aware of their own coping ability and wellbeing. They already know, and try to do everything they can to avoid worsening symptoms.

...because of this the repeated advice of 'Eat your vegetables", "get exercise", "drink less" can feel condescending. It's not bad advice - it's all things I personally do to try and maintain good mental health. but it's not enough.

Since I was a kid I've had crippling anxiety. It hits hard, feeding back on itself and leaving me with painful IBS and fatigue on an almost daily basis. Over the years I pushed it down, built myself around it, and tried to carry on like it was ok.

You see, in my head there wasn't anything wrong. This was just who I was. It wasn't a problem, it was me. I'd hidden this demon so well that I even managed to hide it from myself.

Then @Mr_Rebecca came along, we got married and things were very nice.

So why couldn't I go out for a meal with them? Why couldn't I go for that walk? I like that walk. What the hell was going on?

DYK: Half of all #mentalhealth conditions start by 1️⃣4️⃣ years of age, but most cases are undetected and untreated.
WE ALL have a role to play in supporting adolescents 👧🏾🧒🏼👦🏿👩🏽 with their mental health bit.ly/2CzHeve#LetsTalk

Emotional disorders commonly emerge during adolescence.
In addition to depression or anxiety, adolescents with emotional disorders can also experience excessive irritability, frustration, or anger bit.ly/2IgMdAY#WorldMentalHealthDay